James Vaux, our February ’23 speaker, on Icelandic Literature, studied law at Oxford University and worked as a solicitor in the City of London before transferring to investment banking. He was a managing director and global partner of the international bank Rothschild. Latterly he set up and managed Rothschild’s operations in the Nordic region and advised the Danish, Swedish and Finnish governments during the financial crisis. He lived and worked in Stockholm for three years. Fascinated by Nordic life, he recently took an MA in Scandinavian Studies at University College London, to study the region’s culture and history in more depth. He concentrated on Icelandic literature and Nordic politics, art and design. His dissertation was about how interior design was used politically by the Sweden and the USA during the Cold War.
James is a regular speaker at events, having lectured over 100 times in his career. He has also conducted live interviews on stage with actors and writers, including The Times walking correspondent Christopher Somerville (at the Isle of Wight Literary Festival) and author Shrabani Basu. He produced and hosted a retrospective of actress and film star Jennie Linden’s career together with her, which was staged at venues all over the Isle of Wight. Earlier in the year, James was invited to speak about the secret history of Swedish design to the British-Swedish Association in Stockholm. He will be speaking to Chichester’s u3a about Scandinavian Design in May.
James has also been a DJ, performing at nightclubs in London, Stockholm and Ibiza. He ran a music business, managed singers, DJs and producers and owned two record labels. With his wife Judith he set up a community pop-up cinema on the Isle of Wight and hosted a weekly radio show there for four years. He also studied interior design at the Inchbald School and Sotheby’s Institute, and music production at Point Blank. He is now Chairman of the Oxford University Society West Sussex.